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Bulgaria to hold early elections on May 12

SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) — Bulgaria will hold early parliamentary elections on May 12, following weeks of massive social protests that forced the government to resign triggering a political crisis in the poorest EU member country.

President Rosen Plevneliev said on Thursday that no party was willing to form a cabinet within the current legislature, due to end in July, so he is moving the polling date forward by two months. Prime Minister Boiko Borisov's center-right government resigned last week in the wake of nationwide protests, the biggest since the country's financial meltdown in 1997.

Despite Borisov's resignation, protests against high electricity prices and poverty have continued and already led to some concessions.

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